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This post is almost comically ridiculous if you try and apply any of it outside of the context of (I imagine) a small team that doesn't really do anything exter

This post is almost comically ridiculous if you try and apply any of it outside of the context of (I imagine) a small team that doesn't really do anything externally. How do I tell my clients that I only do meetings on Thursdays? If they happen to be unavailable one Thursday, do they have to wait a fortnight before I deign to speak to them again? Is this guy seriously suggesting that the way to stop being overwhelmed by inbox zero is by using Slack? And honestly, doing one thing a day - really? How in the world does that work? Sure, doing one thing well is better than doing nothing or half-doing a bunch of things, but surely your goal should be actually doing a reasonable amount of things that reflect a solid day's work - and figuring out a strategy for reliably making that happen. Perhaps I'm just a grouch today, but it feels like this post is either satire or written from a completely different universe, utterly unrelated to the one I inhabit and work in.

mathgeek 12y ago
Not just you. I feel like this post just regurgitates a bunch of other "every few days" posts. Doesn't really add much to the conversation. That's not to say that it shouldn't be written, as getting your thoughts out there is always a good exercise. It being on the front page of HN is of questionable use, though. Might be of some utility to anyone who has never read HN before.
- spotridge 12y ago
  I've just canned a very similar post to yours. Is there any explanation as to why this should be on the front page? This seems rather like Reddit - posts there often seem to rise up while most of the comment section is fairly negative.
  - mathgeek 12y ago
    Well there are people voting it up, which I can understand as the concepts are always popular. Not sure on the algorithm that's used.
  - striking 12y ago
    There's no downvote function for stories, so even controversial stories will appear on the front page. The only reason something shouldn't be on the front page is when it's off topic or spam. As long as someone cares about something, it can be on the front page.
    - laumars 12y ago
      There is no "off topic" on HN since the topic is "anything that interests hackers" and us hackers are not going to up vote anything that isn't interesting.
- therealwill 12y ago
  It need to be reiterated until it becomes the norm.
cj 12y ago
Coworker of the OP here. To elaborate a bit: > How do I tell my clients that I only do meetings on Thursdays? I generally do 10-15 customer meetings per week. When I get a meeting request, I ask if they're available on the following Tuesday or Thursday with a 90% hit rate. Meetings are almost always not urgent, so fitting them into Tues and Thurs, instead of spreading them randomly througout the week, has worked really well for me. > How in the world does [doing 1 thing per day] work? [...] surely your goal should be actually doing a reasonable amount of things In the context of software development, doing a large number of things usually doesn't push the product forward as much as doing 1 big 2-4 hour project. Personally I still have 30+ things on my TODO list at any given time, but I try to center my days around getting one "big" thing done, and fill the rest of the day with smaller day-to-day tasks.
- bshimmin 12y ago
  So you do meetings on Tuesday or Thursdays, and rather than doing one thing a day, in fact you do one big task a day and many small tasks. That's all fine and good, but 1) it's not really what the OP's post says, and 2) it's not really very revolutionary at all. I'm glad it works for you guys, but I'm often irritated by these preachy posts which seem to say that developers should be treated as delicate flowers and suggest all manner of strategies to preserve their preferred ways of working, many of which, if you actually applied them to the real world, would result in clients saying, "Wow, these guys are hard to work with, can we please find someone else?"
  - spotridge 12y ago
    > So you do meetings on Tuesday or Thursdays, and rather than doing one thing a day, in fact you do one big task a day and many small tasks. That's all fine and good, but 1) it's not really what the OP's post says, and 2) it's not really very revolutionary at all. I would go further than saying this isn't really very revolutionary, rather it describes a fairly normal working environment.
    - GFischer 12y ago
      Unfortunately, there are a lot of dysfunctional working environments out there, where this wouldn't be considered "normal". Of course, in those environments, developers cannot say "no", they can either keep working under whatever unreasonable constraints they have, or quit. (I've found this a lot more common in companies where the main focus isn't software development) I agree it's not very revolutionary, but I still find it useful to read about how other people organize their teams and how it works, and very especially what tools they use (Slack and a few others are on my to-try list).
samspot 12y ago
I had only one thing to do this entire week, and I didn't even get it done. So from where I sit one thing a day is pretty optimistic. Granted I did a lot of useful things for people, I just didn't get my own priority completed. Hopefully all this other stuff will die down over time. I don't think he is really saying to do just one thing, just that we should hang the success of the day on only one priority. It is somewhat similar to the 'today is the deadline' motto from scrum.
- gknoy 12y ago
  You probably made progress on that task, though. Added unit tests, clarified requirements, etc.
  - samspot 12y ago
    I did. I actually sent everyone a note one morning that I was planning to avoid email, and they should hit me up directly if they needed anything. I was going to suggest that in the comments here, but I feel like I need to see how well that works if it becomes a regular thing.
vinceguidry 12y ago
I happen to use one-goal-a-day in my own career. It's amazing. There's so many things you could do, but would not really move any needles. If you pick the one thing you know will move the needle, and focus just on that, and be happy if you can accomplish it, you'll ultimately be so much more productive, even if it doesn't really feel like it. You can decouple the feeling of being productive from your activities without losing real productivity, if you can do that, you can be amazing.

mathgeek 12y ago

Not just you. I feel like this post just regurgitates a bunch of other "every few days" posts. Doesn't really add much to the conversation. That's not to say that it shouldn't be written, as getting your thoughts out there is always a good exercise. It being on the front page of HN is of questionable use, though. Might be of some utility to anyone who has never read HN before.

spotridge 12y ago
I've just canned a very similar post to yours. Is there any explanation as to why this should be on the front page? This seems rather like Reddit - posts there often seem to rise up while most of the comment section is fairly negative.
- mathgeek 12y ago
  Well there are people voting it up, which I can understand as the concepts are always popular. Not sure on the algorithm that's used.
- striking 12y ago
  There's no downvote function for stories, so even controversial stories will appear on the front page. The only reason something shouldn't be on the front page is when it's off topic or spam. As long as someone cares about something, it can be on the front page.
  - laumars 12y ago
    There is no "off topic" on HN since the topic is "anything that interests hackers" and us hackers are not going to up vote anything that isn't interesting.
therealwill 12y ago
It need to be reiterated until it becomes the norm.

cj 12y ago

Coworker of the OP here. To elaborate a bit: > How do I tell my clients that I only do meetings on Thursdays? I generally do 10-15 customer meetings per week. When I get a meeting request, I ask if they're available on the following Tuesday or Thursday with a 90% hit rate. Meetings are almost always not urgent, so fitting them into Tues and Thurs, instead of spreading them randomly througout the week, has worked really well for me. > How in the world does [doing 1 thing per day] work? [...] surely your goal should be actually doing a reasonable amount of things In the context of software development, doing a large number of things usually doesn't push the product forward as much as doing 1 big 2-4 hour project. Personally I still have 30+ things on my TODO list at any given time, but I try to center my days around getting one "big" thing done, and fill the rest of the day with smaller day-to-day tasks.

bshimmin 12y ago
So you do meetings on Tuesday or Thursdays, and rather than doing one thing a day, in fact you do one big task a day and many small tasks. That's all fine and good, but 1) it's not really what the OP's post says, and 2) it's not really very revolutionary at all. I'm glad it works for you guys, but I'm often irritated by these preachy posts which seem to say that developers should be treated as delicate flowers and suggest all manner of strategies to preserve their preferred ways of working, many of which, if you actually applied them to the real world, would result in clients saying, "Wow, these guys are hard to work with, can we please find someone else?"
- spotridge 12y ago
  > So you do meetings on Tuesday or Thursdays, and rather than doing one thing a day, in fact you do one big task a day and many small tasks. That's all fine and good, but 1) it's not really what the OP's post says, and 2) it's not really very revolutionary at all. I would go further than saying this isn't really very revolutionary, rather it describes a fairly normal working environment.
  - GFischer 12y ago
    Unfortunately, there are a lot of dysfunctional working environments out there, where this wouldn't be considered "normal". Of course, in those environments, developers cannot say "no", they can either keep working under whatever unreasonable constraints they have, or quit. (I've found this a lot more common in companies where the main focus isn't software development) I agree it's not very revolutionary, but I still find it useful to read about how other people organize their teams and how it works, and very especially what tools they use (Slack and a few others are on my to-try list).

samspot 12y ago

I had only one thing to do this entire week, and I didn't even get it done. So from where I sit one thing a day is pretty optimistic. Granted I did a lot of useful things for people, I just didn't get my own priority completed. Hopefully all this other stuff will die down over time. I don't think he is really saying to do just one thing, just that we should hang the success of the day on only one priority. It is somewhat similar to the 'today is the deadline' motto from scrum.

gknoy 12y ago
You probably made progress on that task, though. Added unit tests, clarified requirements, etc.
- samspot 12y ago
  I did. I actually sent everyone a note one morning that I was planning to avoid email, and they should hit me up directly if they needed anything. I was going to suggest that in the comments here, but I feel like I need to see how well that works if it becomes a regular thing.

vinceguidry 12y ago

I happen to use one-goal-a-day in my own career. It's amazing. There's so many things you could do, but would not really move any needles. If you pick the one thing you know will move the needle, and focus just on that, and be happy if you can accomplish it, you'll ultimately be so much more productive, even if it doesn't really feel like it. You can decouple the feeling of being productive from your activities without losing real productivity, if you can do that, you can be amazing.